Chapter 9

She had seen him. Not the monster, not the High Lord, just him. Damnation, she even forgot he was the High Lord, and Tamlin had never thought such a thing would be even possible.

Katherine was sitting by his side, as far from Allie as she could manage without it being odd, to hide his scent on her. He focused on the talk to keep his blood from heating up at the memory of last night.

"...same as always, Charle was asleep before midnight." Allie washed down a bite of her lunch "Is your head better?"

"Much better. I just needed some tea and rest. Was your aunt terribly upset?"

Tamlin focused on keeping his face straight as he munched down on his portion.

"Much offended, but more worried about you. I bet she´s coming by in the afternoon."

Katherine clicked her tongue disapprovingly.

"I love Maggie but I'd rather she didn't, there's so much to do."

"I'll send her to you here if she drops by." Allie volunteered.

That wouldn't do. He would have to run his errand in the afternoon, but Allie couldn't know it, and Marguerite would notice if he was nowhere to be found.

"Don't worry about the work, go ease Marguerite´s mind, I'll handle things around here."

Katherine's eyes sparkled. She knew what he was doing.

"Are you sure? I don't want to add to your load."

"Don't worry."

Katherine smiled blandly at him, but he could still feel that undertone in her eyes.

"Thank you, Tamlin."

Perfectly played, Lucien would have been proud. It was...different, the two of them working in tandem. Not the farm-work but that. Their own little secret.

It had been the first time he had been with a female ever since Feyre had left. Tamlin had been terrified when he found her in the woods, of what he might do, that he might scare her, but she walked to him and pulled him for a kiss, and he realized he didn't find Katherine in the woods, she found him, had come looking for him. Even when his claws came out she didn't flinch. She liked it. She didn't see the monster he had been, only the faerie that he was now. She had forgotten he was the High Lord.

That she didn't seem to have any intention of making that a lasting arrangement didn't bother him. It was better that way.

Even with all he had learned, all he had worked through, Tamlin still couldn't bear the thought of taking another lover, to risk becoming like that again. He had mastered himself by now, but his temper was only half of it, the worst of him came out when he had others he cared to protect, and he couldn't risk whatever scraps of peace that family had. Allie and Katherine deserved quietude to thrive, he had no right to jeopardize that, so it was best, in a way, that Katherine didn't seem interested in repeating what they had done in the woods.

Even when it had felt so good. In other circumstances, he would have sworn off any females but farm-wives for the rest of his days.

He kept his eyes on the fields as she leaned forward to pick something from the basket. She must wear those stays rather loose, for them to push her breasts so little when there was so much of her under that dress. But he mustn't think about that.

If he had his fiddle with him, he would play all night just for the joy of it.

Katherine took off her hat to feel the sun on her face as she rode back home with Allie. It was there. How could it have been gone for so long? How did she live all that time without that fundamental part of her?

She tried not to look too gleeful, Allie was a smart girl and she would easily put two and two together if Katherine were to start singing the day after Calanmai.

She hadn't sung in forever.

And Allie would probably attribute it to the wrong cause. The fuck had been nice, great really, but the thing which filled her heart now was the sun. How could she have pushed it away for so long? The wind blew gently by, if she were to hold out her hand she would feel it through her fingers, ready to be threaded and woven into something lovely, as everything in her blood begged her to do.

All in due time. At least, now it was back. She was whole again.

Marguerite came by early in the afternoon, bearing some pastries and a bottle of sweet wine.

"How are you, Kate? Allie had told me you were ill."

Katherine shook her head, putting water to the fire to make some tea.

"I had a dreadful headache, it kept me up late into the night."

"What about the sunlight?" Marguerite sat down at the kitchen table, her pretty brow slightly furrowed.

"What sunlight, Maggie? I've been locked in a room for four years and only came out in winter."

Her sister by grace leaned back with a sigh.

"Fair enough. But are you feeling better now?"

"I am. Some chamomile tea and rest seem to have done the trick. I'm only sorry to have missed the fire, how was it?"

Marguerite´s frown dissolved into a smile.

"It was great, as always. Elize got so drunk she would have tripped right into the fire if Daphne hadn't pulled her back, Old Duncan sang the whole night, you know those awful tavern songs, all of them-"

"I like the tavern songs!" Katherine defended.

She wished they would go to the tavern more often, but for years now she had to decline their invitations for lack of money. There were so many things higher on her priorities list than getting drunk.

"Of course you do." Marguerite rolled her eyes dramatically "When was the last time we went to the tavern any way?"

"In the second year of my term, I think."

"Almost three years ago!" Marguerite was shocked "Ingrid is certainly wondering whether we're dead by now!"

Katherine breathed a laughter at that. She had crossed Ingrid´s path hundreds of times in the last three years, but Marguerite was right. If only she had the money she would love to pay her a visit.

"What about next week?" Marguerite suggested, her eyes almost glowing "I'll cover you. Invite Dan too!"

"You're too kind, Maggie."

"You are mistaken, I'm doing this for my own gains." Marguerite frowned "I want to take my adored sister to the tavern to get drunk and will stop at nothing to get it."

"You know I love you, right?" Katherine poured the tea for Marguerite.

"I thought it might be the case." Marguerite smiled, sacking the basket for some pastry "It won't be for free though, I expect you to help me with the shearing."

"You know I would have helped you anyway." Katherine protested, biting into the jam-filled pastry.

"You know I would have gotten you drunk anyway."

Tamlin could be as silent as a cat, if she hadn't seen his reflection in the kitchen window she wouldn't have known he was there until he leaned against the counter, close enough to silently slide the small apothecary bag from his pocket into hers.

"Wait." She mouthed silently, to keep Allie from overhearing from the sitting room, before taking the small bottle from her other pocket into his "The scent."

Tamlin frowned in amazement.

"Brilliant." He replied soundlessly, and she winked at him with a half smile before turning back to making bread.

Why did she do that? It was just the giddiness for having the sun back, bubbling up to the surface and turning her back to her old habits, but Tamlin wasn't one of her sailors and she shouldn't flirt with him. One night for each lover, the golden rule. One night for each lover, he was too pretty-faced and she couldn't risk catching feelings, things were already too complicated with them being friends.

Sun or no sun, she wouldn't do it again, it would only mess everything up. She would wait until Allie went to bed, then she would take her tea and they would pretend nothing ever happened.

And then she would search her old trunk for the spell books she had brought with her to New Hope and never used, and for her many Day-fashioned dresses that she never got to wear. Kiril had been the love of her life, but he didn't understand, he had taken one look at the dresses and deemed them nice for the bedroom. She never worked up the courage to dance when he could see it after that, he would have said the same about her dancing, and dance was too sacred for him to mar with those words.

That was the day she had decided to become Spring. She shut her spells, her dresses and her tambourine into that trunk, where Kiril couldn't soil them, ordered new dresses in the Spring fashion and pushed the thrumming sun deeper into her chest. Clara had been so shocked she had almost laid an egg to see Katherine in stays and with her hair in the Spring style, when they arrived to Grandpa Titian´s funeral.

She had been too young. If it had been now, she would have fought.

"What did the poor dough do to you?" Allie´s voice startled her.

"I didn't see you there." Katherine looked at her through the reflection in the window.

"You were quite taken with that." Allie gestured her chin towards the dough Katherine had been violently kneading on the stone counter.

Katherine balled up the dough and covered it with a cloth.

"Your aunt has invited me to the tavern next week, as payment for helping her with the shearing, and Tamlin as well, and I'm not sure you should be here alone. We should all go to the town house for the night."

Allie smirked at her.

"Don't worry mum, if I see the High Lord I'll ring the bell."

Katherine scoffed, washing the flour off her hands in the cold water from the sink.

"Don't call him that."

Allie crossed her arms over her chest with a shrug.

"He is."

"Was."

"You know these things are forever, right?"

She wiped her hands on another cloth.

"It doesn't matter. Tamlin is not the High Lord, he is my friend. Our friend."

Allie nodded slowly, Kiril´s intelligence gleaming in her eyes.

"I see. You haven't let go of that yet."

Katherine didn't respond to that. No, she would never get over the betrayal that had cost Kiril´s life.

But if he were here, she would still be as she was. As she had been all those years. The High Lord had taken Kiril from her, but Tamlin helped her get herself back.

Spring to wake what was dormant, Spring to bring it back to life.

She felt a shiver down her spine.

"Tamlin is the High Lord, mum, it's the same faerie. He made mistakes, but he is a good male."

"You don't have to defend me." Tamlin´s voice made Katherine´s spirit nearly jump from her skin.

"Shit, Tamlin, you nearly fucking killed me!"

"Sorry."

"Mouth, mum!"

"Sorry, Allie."

Tamlin stood there nonchalantly leaning against the doorway, his hair dampening his tunic. How much had he heard?

Allie walked to him and put her hand on his shoulder.

"You are good, Tam." She gave him a little squeeze before heading upstairs, leaving Katherine alone to deal with the fallout of them being caught discussing him.

"What is it that you didn't let go of?" Tamlin asked quietly, his eyes back to that haunted sadness he had when they first met.

"It is my burden to carry." Katherine made a ball of the cloth she had used to wipe her hands and turned to toss it on the counter.

"How have I hurt you?" Tamlin´s voice was quiet, falling back to those melancholy tones of before, and Katherine was torn between trying to protect him and the anger that was rushing to the surface. He had no right to be upset when he had caused it all.

"You can't guess?" She couldn't keep the sting from her voice.

"Katherine, I've imploded my whole Court, I don't know the particulars of every life I've destroyed."

Katherine turned to him so quickly she hit her forearm against the counter.

"I didn't mean it like that." Tamlin´s eyes widened "Shit. Sorry, Katherine what I meant..."

The wind coming through the kitchen window whipped a strand of Katherine´s hair against her face.

"What did you mean, pray tell." She couldn't help the drop on her voice.

"Not that tone again." Tamlin recoiled, and it broke her heart to know she had done that to her friend, but she had a score to settle with the High Lord of Spring "Shit, Katherine, I'm sorry."

"What for?" She kept her tone.

"For everything. I never meant any harm."

For everything was nowhere good enough.

"You didn't mean any harm? Grand! What the fuck did you think would happen when you betrayed Hybern? They were already here, you cloth-headed bleached piece of a lordling!" Tamlin´s face had gone to the colour of paper. Too low, but she couldn't stop now, the words flowed from her like a torrent, everything she had held to herself in the seven years since the war "My husband died trying to hold the Hybernian forces before they could reach our home!" She could still hear Kiril´s last words to her, as she pleaded with him to leave the farm and retreat eastwards with the other refugees "Don't shame me, Katherine." "I have given everything of me to keep my child fed and clothed, I've gone hungry for it, I've seen my town reduced to cinders and I have built it back up when you couldn't be bothered to care, do you have any idea how hard it was, the first years under The Alliance? I had to learn a new taxation system, we all had to learn how to work with each other, how to coordinate, and all the while I was glad because at least I wouldn't starve, because most of my jewels are gone by now and I haven't had a cup of fucking coffee in over six fucking years!"

Tamlin didn't even seem to be breathing. She had gone too far, had let it all out, she hadn't meant to but it had been bottled up for so long now…

The clock ticking in the sitting room was the only indication time hadn't frozen still, even the wind had died down around them.

"I'm… terribly sorry, Katherine. I didn't know."

Katherine hugged herself, melting against the counter. She had said it all. Her sight was all blurred, but she only noticed she was crying when the hot tears rolled down her face. Tamlin took two steps towards her but halted by the kitchen table, his hand in the back of a chair.

"Why did you do that?" Her voice was heavy with tears.

He shook his head.

"The whole story is...long. But I had to break cover, or else they would have gotten Feyre, and then all would be truly lost."

For the Cursebreaker then. Duncan, Kiril, so many others, dead because he had to save the Cursebreaker.

"I tried to rally the forces the moment I winnowed back home, but we were too few, too scattered. I'm sorry we didn't make it here on time."

Katherine remembered that too. Hybern was pressing in, but the army had finally risen in the west, and their forces were called back there to fight. A lucky escape, they were almost upon the band of refugees.

"Was it worth it? The Cursebreaker went back to Night anyway."

Tamlin´s face darkened, and Katherine wondered if she had finally triggered his temper.

"I didn't do it for me, I did it because it had to be done. Hybern had to be stopped."

Katherine turned back to the loaf of dough and gracelessly put it on the tray.

"It doesn't mean I'm not sorry that it hurt you, that Elliot has died and that it put you through so much heartbreak and hardship. Allie never told me the full extent of it."

"Allie doesn't know the full extent of it." Katherine turned back and found him closer to her.

Tamlin lifted his hand as if he might reach out to her, but gave up and pulled it back. Katherine knew she must be red and puffy-eyed, but there was something in his eyes…

"Are you scared of me?"

An echo of a question he had asked her before. Tamlin looked down for a fraction of a second before meeting her eye again.

"I… I think I may be. A little."

Katherine pierced him with that amber stare like a mountain lion just waiting for a deer´s next move to pounce.

"You could kill me faster than I kill a chicken." There was a sneer to her voice "What do you have to be scared of?"

That look, that voice. With her tear-stained face, she looked like a goddess who had been hurt and would now enact swift revenge. Beautiful, heart-breaking and utterly terrifying.

"I would never hurt you." He said it before realizing he already had. Long before he knew her. He had hurt her and thousands of other families in Spring.

What have I done?

The question that rang through his mind ever since Feyre had left for good.

"I'm sorry, Katherine. If I knew it back then, I would have done it all differently."

That covered nothing, meant nothing. There were no words that could ever make any difference to what had happened, what he had done. He had learned too late, changed too late.

Katherine broke that icy stare, and he could see the hurt and the pain she had gone through. She was too young to have been through all that, he was supposed to have protected her, protected all of his people, but he had failed them, just as he had failed Feyre and Lucien, he had failed everyone who had been counting on him.

But that wasn't about him.

Tamlin reached into his pocket and offered her his handkerchief.

"I know it wasn't all your fault." Katherine took the small piece of cloth and wiped her tears away "But it was so much easier pinning it all on you. Well, before."

"Blame it all on me then. Anything to make it easier." If bearing the blame was all he could do to ease her pain, he would gladly do it. It wasn't far from the truth, anyway.

But Katherine shook her head.

"You're too easy to like."

Tamlin´s shock must have shown on his face, because Katherine puzzled at him.

"What?" She cocked her head.

Tamlin did his best to appear neutral. His mother was probably the only one to ever find him easy to like, Allie had liked him because she saw him as a giant dog and everyone loves big dogs, even Lucien had said once that Tamlin was an "acquired taste".

"That's a first."

Katherine gave a weak chuckle.

"I'm sorry to have called you a… cloth-headed bleached lordling."

"Piece of a lordling." He corrected "It's all right. It was very creative, actually." It had been quite refreshing to hear an insult not incorporating some variation of the words beast, dog or wild.

Katherine shifted uncomfortably on her feet.

"I mean it." She mumbled "I mean the apology, not the insult!" She specified.

"It's all right, Katherine." Tamlin reached out and squeezed her arm lightly. After everything, she had every right to insult him as she pleased.

Katherine closed her eyes and drew a deep breath.

"I can't keep holding it against you forever." She opened her eyes and beheld him with a clear gaze the colour of honey, or amber, or molten sugar.

"Can you forgive me?" Tamlin wanted to bite off his tongue. He should never have asked, he had no right to ask that of her.

But Katherine smiled tentatively at him.

"I forgive you, m'lord. I forgave Tamlin long ago."

He hadn't noticed the weight that had settled in his chest until it had lifted, and it was so sudden that he let out a sharp breath. Before he could register, Katherine´s arms were around him, and she was cooing gently to him, her voice low and gentle like warm milk on a sleepless night, her hands caressing his hair.

Because he was soaking her shoulder with tears. Tamlin couldn't recall the last time he had cried in front of anyone, he must have been a boy then, he had since learned to deal with his emotions like a male, thrashing and breaking everything in sight. It had taken a long time to unlearn that.

"I'm sorry, Katherine."

"I know, I know." She placated, rocking lightly.

It was ridiculous, he had done so much wrong and she was the one comforting him. That was the thought that had him pulling back from her embrace with whatever scraps were left of his dignity.

"I'm sorry about that." He wiped his tears on the sleeves of his tunic.

"Everyone cries, Tamlin. Even big tough warriors." She handed him his handkerchief.

His father would have been shocked to hear that.

"I'm going to make us some spiced milk." Katherine declared, reaching for the pan.

"Before dinner?"

"There is no wrong time for spiced milk."

Tamlin found himself smiling. Forgiveness. He had thought he was past any of that, and he had done so much wrong… But Katherine forgave him. It was only one of so many he had wounded, but it meant the world.

Katherine walked up the stairs to Allie´s bedroom. Her child had given her and Tamlin space to talk things over, but it was time for dinner now and she hadn't come down.

Allie wasn't in her room. Instead, Katherine found her sitting on her bed, her jewellery box open beside her and the scant survivors displayed on the cover.

Allie´s tearful eyes as she halted by the door said all she needed to know – her child had heard at least some of the heart-pouring.

"Mum…"

Katherine put on a brave face.

"It's nothing, darling."

Allie shook her head.

"Why didn't you let me work with you?"

"You were only a child, Allie. It's of no consequence, really, I'll buy more."

"Your gold chain." Allie lamented.

The gold chain had been one of the first items to go, and only two of the pendants she wore from it remained.

"Allie, it's just gold." Katherine sat before her, taking the dainty hands into hers "The important thing it that we made it."

"Mum, I know how much you love your gold."

Katherine shrugged.

"It's just gold. It is you that I love."

Allie looked down at the dilapidated treasure.

"Are we really poor?"

"We were poor. Everything is better now."

"That's why you stopped wearing your jewels, you didn't want me to notice when they disappeared."

Allie was every inch Kiril´s daughter.

"I thought dad had left us something."

"We didn't save much, the two of us." Katherine admitted.

"But he said I had a dowry." Allie frowned.

"You do have a dowry, it's intact."

Allie went white.

"Did you… Oh no, mum, please don't tell me that you've sold your jewels with all that money just gathering dust…"

Katherine shook her head.

"Your dowry is sacred. Whenever you want to go on and start your life, it's going to be there waiting for you."

Allie looked at her for a long moment, her hands shaking in Katherine´s.

"Thank you, mum."

Katherine smiled and squeezed her child´s hands once more before getting up.

"Let´s go, we're starving Tamlin."

That's it for today´s chapter, I hope you have a nice weekend!